Thomas
Nelson, Jr., a rich planter-merchant who at one time owned more than 400
slaves, was one of the most active of the Virginia patriots. Mainly
because of health problems, however, his career in Congress was brief
and undistinguished, though he made great financial sacrifices during
the war and won fame as a militia commander and State
politician.

The eldest of five sons, Nelson was born at Yorktown,
Va., in 1738. At the age of 14, he sailed to England to supplement his
initial tutorial education. In 1761, after graduating from Hackney
School and Cambridge University, he returned to Virginia to help his
father manage his plantation and mercantile business. The next year,
young Nelson married; he and his wife were to have 11 children.

In 1764 Nelson became a justice of the peace for York
County and entered the House of Burgesses. He served in the house until
May 1774, when Royal Governor Lord Dunmore, provoked at its protests
over the Boston Port Act, dissolved it. That year and the next, Nelson
attended three of the Virginia provincial assemblies, where he worked
closely with Patrick Henry. The last assembly elected Nelson to the
Continental Congress, at which time he resigned his colonelcy in the
Virginia militia.

In Congress, Nelson was outspoken in his desire to
sever the bonds with England. He journeyed to Virginia in the spring of
1776. At a convention held in Williamsburg in May, he introduced and won
approval for a resolution recommending national independence, drafted by
Edmund Pendleton. Nelson carried it to Philadelphia and presented it to
Richard Henry Lee, who redrafted and condensed it into his June 7
resolution. Not long afterward, Nelson's health began to decline.
Subsequently, he divided his time between Philadelphia and Virginia, and
in the spring of 1777 resigned from Congress.

Back in Virginia, Nelson was awarded the rank of
brigadier general in the militia and was elected to the lower house of
the legislature. In the spring of 1778 Congress appealed to men of means
in the Colonies to form troops of light cavalry. Nelson, partially at
his own expense, raised, outfitted, and trained such a unit. In July he
marched it northward to Philadelphia. The next month, Congress decided
it was not needed and it returned home.

Nelson served in Congress again for a short time in
1779, but poor health forced him to retire once more. Nevertheless, the
next year he obtained munitions and supplies for the militia, commanded
troops, attended the legislature, and raised money to help subsidize the
war. He was particularly effective in soliciting funds from wealthy
plantation owners, to whom he pledged to repay the loans personally if
the State should fail to do so.

When the British invaded Virginia in 1780-81,
civilian control seriously hampered Nelson's effectiveness as a militia
commander. Consequently, in the latter year the legislature elected him
as Governor and granted him powers approaching those of a military
dictator. Although still bothered by bad health, he kept the government
intact and strengthened defenses. In September-October 1781, while
taking part in the Yorktown siege, according to family tradition he
ordered troops to shell his own mansion when he learned it was a British
headquarters. Soon after the victory at Yorktown, overwhelmed by the
burdens of office and still in poor physical condition, he resigned the
governorship.

This painting commemorates one of the highlights of the siege of
Yorktown (1781). Thomas Nelson, Jr., commander in chief of Virginia
troops, took an active part.(Oil, date unknown,
by Louis E. Lami, hangs in the Virginia State Capitol, National Park Service.)

That same year, Nelson partially retired to Offley
Hoo, a modest estate in Hanover County that his father had willed to him
on his death in 1772. In financial distress from his wartime sacrifices,
the younger Nelson lacked money to renovate his Yorktown home, where he
had lived since 1767. Except for occasional tours in the legislature and
visits to Yorktown, he devoted the rest of his life to his business
affairs. He died at Offley Hoo in 1789 at the age of 50. His grave is at
Yorktown in the yard of Grace Episcopal Church.